Sunday, 27 May 2012

We are having the most stunning weather in Surrey, England and I went with a friend today to a show garden as part of the NGS Gardens Open for Charity. And to make it more exciting for me my hubby has just bought me a new point-and-click camera to replace my trusty old one and I just love it to bits!

Sunday, 20 May 2012

I have to say that I don't often use other people's pictures (except textures) because somehow it doesn't feel my own but I was in London recently and couldn't resist one of Dover's royalty-free books which contained flowers. I used 3 of them here with similar backgrounds:

My husband is not a happy bunny because last year's badger has obviously struck again and torn up his lawn. They love the grubs which are found amongst the lawn roots and they leave big holes where they have been digging. He does love animals and I think that if he got a siting of one he would be quite pleased but they are nocturnal and the only evidence is the wrecked lawn! I think we have managed to block up the hole in the fence.

I do love animals in the garden though and I miss the foxes who don't seem to come that often anymore now that we have big bins and food isn't left outside in black plastic bags. I suppose that's a good think but they are such pretty animals.

Will have to be content with the squirrels who were out in force this weekend.

Wednesday, 16 May 2012

I'm still enjoying manipulating the photos I took in Thailand. Here I make selections using the marquee tool to show the layer underneath which I demonstrate in my Free Online Course that starts on Sunday.

Sunday, 13 May 2012

I just have to Wax Lyrical today!And for anybody who doesn't know what that means here is the definition:"Wax" is a verb, from Old English (what most people call Anglo-Saxon)
"weaxan", meaning "to grow, become". It's the opposite to "wane",
meaning "to diminish, weaken". Never heard of the Moon "waxing and
waning"?
"Lyrical" is from a Greek word meaning "singing to the lyre (a musical
instrument)", and it means "speaking or writing in a way which expresses
emotion, rather than describing events".
So it means "to become emotional in one's expression".

There is so much lovely art on the internet now. Sometimes when I have a minute to spare I allow myself to explore the internet art world and catch up on all the zillions of blogs and flickr pages that I have bookmarked and just marvel at the talent in the world.Before the internet, artists seemed to be a rare breed. I have always thought that everybody had potential to be creative but not THAT creative. And even better for me is how many of them are women! What's telling for me is that if you had said 'artist' to me 10 years ago I would have pictured a man. Now if you say 'artist' to me today I instinctively think of a woman! That was a real revelation to me.I think I am going to have to do a piece on printing your own art. It's time for us to get our art on the wall!

Saturday, 12 May 2012

When I take a photo that I want to manipulate, I have a vague idea of what I want to do and sometimes when I try blending it with a different background it works perfectly the first time but other times it doesn't. After having done many, many manipulations I now have a better feeling for what might work and what might not work.

However, I still don't always get it right. If something isn't working put it away for another day and try something else. My best results come from pictures that I am inspired by. It always astonishes me what I produce if I am in the mood and excited about what I am doing.

Also, even if you think you have the perfect picture don't stop if you are enjoying yourself. Sometimes I create a picture that I think is great then I try something more and something more and in the end I think my original picture was quite bland compared with what I produced in the end. Often I will 'make a mistake' and switch off a layer to discover that the top layer blends even better with the layer below. If you are thinking of selling your art think of trying different colours to suit different tastes - you will also find some surprising and lovely results quite by accident.

Experiment and experiment more. We have just renovated by husband's study and the main colours are a dark magenta red with some turquoise. He loves dogs so I wanted to create a picture that would fit in well with an office but still be colourful. Here are 8 pictures I produced from one main picture with a variety of secondary backgrounds and these are only half of them:

Wednesday, 9 May 2012

Wow, I've just had a very special long weekend with a dear friend of mine who lives in Capolago which is an hour away from Milan within the borders of Switzerland. We went on some marvellous walks and visited the beautiful city of Como over the border in Italy.

Sometimes it's quite difficult to be sociable when you are rushing from pillar to post to try and get as many pictures as possible because the buildings are quite wonderful.

Here is a collage of some of my photos:

One thing I love about this area is the wonderful courtyards. Here's a photo manipulation of a table in a courtyard:

Tuesday, 8 May 2012

Come and join my Image Artistry website! It's going to be a website for Photoshop Elements users to get help and training.

The beginners videos are available to everybody until the 30th June then they will only be available to members on workshops.

I am also giving a FREE online workshop from the 20th May on all aspects of Selections. Come and join in and do the Challenges even if you are intermediate or advanced. You can join the workshop group Selections, Selections, Selections now ready to start on the 20th.